NATIONAL REPORT

ATLANTA -- Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp., squeezed by record high fuel prices and a slowing economy, are combining in a stock-swap deal that would create the world's biggest carrier.

The boards of both companies gave the deal the go-ahead Monday.

Delta said the combined airline, which will be called Delta, will have an enterprise value of $17.7 billion. It will be based in Atlanta, and Delta CEO Richard Anderson will head the combined company.

Under the terms of the transaction, Northwest shareholders will receive 1.25 Delta shares for each Northwest share they own. The exchange ratio represents a premium to Northwest shareholders of 16.8 percent based on Monday's closing stock prices.

Threats close colleges in Midwest

CHICAGO -- A message scrawled in a university bathroom "Be prepared to die on 4/14" left not just the college's campus empty Monday, but also those of two adjoining high schools and a pair of nearby elementary schools.

After the precautions were taken at St. Xavier University on the city's southwest side, Malcolm X College evacuated students and canceled daytime classes Monday after a similar threat was found in a bathroom at the campus west of downtown. And Michigan's Oakland University was closed Monday because of threatening graffiti mentioning April 14.

Mothers of sect children forced to leave them

SAN ANGELO, Texas -- Texas officials who took 416 children from a polygamist retreat into state custody sent many of their mothers away Monday, as a judge and lawyers struggled with a legal and logistical morass in one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history.

Of the 139 women who voluntarily left the compound with their children since an April 3 raid, only those with children 4 or younger were allowed to continue staying with them, said Marissa Gonzales, spokewoman for the state Children's Protective Services agency. She did not know how many women stayed.

Number of visitors to New Orleans almost doubles

NEW ORLEANS -- Tourism the city's largest industry before Hurricane Katrina rose substantially in 2007, according to a survey conducted by the University of New Orleans Hospitality Research Center for the New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau and New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation.

There were 3.7 million visitors to the city in 2006. That number jumped to 7.1 million in 2007, according to the survey.

Chances high for California quake within 30 years

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. -- California has virtually no chance of escaping a major earthquake during the next three decades, according to scientists.

A new statewide forecast released Monday puts the probability at 99.7 percent for a quake of at least magnitude 6.7, the size of the 1994 Northridge quake that killed 72 people, sometime before 2037.